BIDI® Stick rollout activated in 700 initial new stores under agreements
MELBOURNE, Florida
– GRANT-VALKARIA, Fla., March 07, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Kaival Brands Innovations Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: KAVL) (“Kaival Brands,” the “Company” or “we,” “our” or similar terms), the exclusive U.S. distributor of all products manufactured by Bidi Vapor, LLC (“Bidi Vapor”), including the BIDI® Stick electronic nicotine delivery system (ENDS), which are intended for adult tobacco consumers 21 and over, announced that it has over the past few months entered into new retail distribution agreements representing potential new distribution to approximately 13,500 locations.
Under the terms of the agreements, BIDI® Stick will initially be activated in 700 locations, with another 1,500 locations expected within the next 90 days. All of the new locations meet Kaival Brand’s and Bidi Vapor’s stringent requirements for customer identification verification and youth-access prevention.
“We are excited to announce these significant new distribution agreements, totaling up to 13,500 new locations, as we look to continue the ramp up of marketing and sales activity for BIDI® Stick. Since Bidi Vapor succeeded in its merits case against the FDA vacating FDA’s marketing denial order for ENDS products in August 2022, we have seen a resurgence of interested retailers and potential distributors,” stated Eric Mosser, President and Chief Operating Officer of Kaival Brands. “While the FDA continues to move slowly in enforcing against bad actors, major retailers are showing their commitment to e-cigarettes as a category and using corporate discretion to select brands that are committed to youth-access prevention and responsible marketing of adult products. We believe our products fit squarely in this category, and we are hopeful that this positioning will lead to greater revenues for Kaival Brands during 2023.”
The BIDI® Stick, which comes in tobacco, menthol and nine other adult-oriented flavor varieties, is the No. 1-selling, self-contained, premium, and sustainable ENDS device in the United States, according to data from New York-based Nielsen. The BIDI® Stick contains tobacco-derived nicotine, is the subject of a pending U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Premarket Tobacco Product Application (PMTA), and is permissible to distribute in the United States, subject to FDA enforcement. The BIDI® Stick was developed specifically for use by adult smokers and existing adult nicotine users that are looking for a better alternative to continued smoking.
“We are excited to increase the reach of the BIDI® Stick by up to 13,500 new stores,” stated Russell Quick, president of QuikfillRx, LLC d/b/a Kaival Marketing Services, the Company’s third-party sales and marketing vendor. “These new agreements represent an immediate impact of 700 new locations to start and we believe represents a vote of confidence that retailers have in us and our products.”